How to disable auto-play videos in Safari…best solution.

I have my Mac set up for audio mixing and audio for video, and as a result I have a robust little monitoring system hooked up. This currently consists of a pair of Neumann KH120 active monitors, combined with a BagEnd ELF subwoofer system so I can accurately monitor the real lows. The only problem with this is that I often leave the monitoring system turned up, and when I am using a web browser to look at a page such as CNN, auto-play videos can suddenly come on at high volume. Inevitably I am left scrambling to reach the master level knob or mute on my Saffire audio interface. I have searched for a means to stop these videos and tried various solutions, but none were great. For instance disabling Flash on certain sites has mixed results, and using an ad blocking plugin also does not always work, and can block things I want to see when I’m doing web development. I found something that does work quite nicely however, which is enabling Safari’s hidden Debug menu and using that to disable inline videos. The beauty of this solution is that once the menu is enabled, you get an extra drop down that lets you easily turn inline videos on or off. Here are the steps involved:

1.) Open the terminal application in the Mac utilities folder. Hopefully you are familiar with terminal, but if not be careful since you can screw up your Mac.

2.) Type or copy in the following exactly as below:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1

3.) Hit return and exit terminal.

4.) Now when you re-launch Safari you should see a “Debug” menu to the right of the “Help” menu.

5.) To disable videos simply navigate to “media flags” on the Debug pulldown and choose “Disallow inline video” at which point a check will appear next to that choice. When you want to turn inline videos back on, just uncheck the same menu item.

This will also enable/disable youtube videos, and I have found it to be quite handy. I can have my monitoring system on and not worry that if I open a page in Safari or look at the news that I’ll be blasted by a video. I turn videos on when I want to see one, but otherwise leave them disabled. If you have a similar situation with inline videos and this tip is useful, please feel free to post a comment since I love to hear from readers. Now for some quality Sitt’n time…hopefully without accidentally blasting any auto-play videos.